Abu GarciaAbu 506 MKII Cardinal Reel - Black/Silver

Super reel and great price had the original 506 many years ago this model is an upgrade so smooth and easy to use.

I have to say I am biased towards this reel.Once I used one I didn't want to go back to a fixed spool, and I have now just purchased the latest model.If you have never used a closed face reel before the simplicity of its design will come as a surprise.Basically, the spool itself moves, there is no bail arm and most importantly, very little chance of any snags or "birds nests"You push the top button to release to wind arm under the spool cover and then turn the handle to activate it. Its absolutely brilliant for trotting and is perfect in windy days with all the line covered.It comes with 3 shallow spools each with a 100m of 3Lb line capacity and 1 deep spool with 200m of 6Lb capacity.The quality and action of the reel seem very good. It has an adjustable drag on the reel arm, an anti-reverse, back wind lever and also a drag lock button.It also comes with a nice strong case to protect it and spare chenille strips to line the edges of the spools to act as an extra prevention against snags, but in my experience these last years.I know alot of anglers shun closed face reels, but for me this reel is perfect for river/canal fishing of all types and I don't use anything else

I'm undecided on whether this reel is significantly better than my 40 year old version. Apart from more bearings it doesn't seem to add much to the original recipe. Having said that if you've never used one like it before then I'm sure you'll like it. It's good for river float fishing but I've used it on a lake too.

Excellent process and nice reel

Arrived= safe, looks good, working well with no problems, thank you.

Always preferred a closed face reel since the early 70s the only difference I've noticed is aplastic spool and the way it attaches. Still a very usable reel.

The best reel ever made. Gives you total control. But I would say the build quality is not as good as when it was made in Sweden.

I was skeptical about buying this reel as I'd seen reviews knocking it saying the old versions are way better, but I figured I'd pull the trigger and decide for myself.I've only used it for one session, and it's my first closed face reel. I decided to give it a try on my pellet waggler set up, not the greatest pairing I will admit a traditional fixed spool would have been better.The main problem I noticed with this reel is when I hooked into my first carp I had the rod bent away, reeling frantically to pickup some of the slack line as the fish was running... felt like I was reeling and nothing was happening, well guess what! Nothing was happening. The single pickup pin either didn't like the floatmax line I was using maybe, or its generally just a poor design. I had to tighten the drag to the max to be able to retrieve line with the fish on, but casting and retrieving it was fine.The older variants of the reel are apparently double pin vs the single pin on the new ones. Which leads me to think this is just a poor design, but I still need to get some more usage out of it to determine what the score is but so far, not impressed.